Dover Terrace, Fairfield, CA

Dover Terrace gives Fairfield a settled, older residential feel. Most homes here were built between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, a mix of single-family houses with three or four bedrooms and some townhomes, and the street trees have had decades to fill out. Houses run from about 1,000 to 2,000 square feet, which gives the blocks a consistent scale. Three city parks fall inside the neighborhood. Tabor Park, on East Tabor Avenue, has a playground, a basketball court, a picnic shelter and walking paths. Tolenas Park, on Catlin Drive, and Meadow Park, on Meadowlark Drive, add playgrounds and open grass, and Meadow Park has a bike path. For a sandwich, Mid-Valley Deli & Catering is in the neighborhood itself. Calicraft Brewing's taproom, on Horizon Drive in Cement Hill, has more than twenty beers on tap and a full kitchen, and it offers free tours on weekend afternoons. Claybank Deli & Bagels, also in Cement Hill, sits a little way from the nearest Dover Terrace blocks, and Cabalen Filipino Cuisine is close to it. Straw Hat Pizza is the nearby pizza night standby. Major Market, a grocery on the East Tabor side, is steps from the boundary, and a Taco Bell on the edge handles quick dinners. Most other errands are short drives along Travis Boulevard, and I-80 carries the longer trips. Few of the streets have anything to walk to besides the parks. The trade is a commercial and light-industrial edge, with a brewery, an olive oil co-packer and busy roads along the boundaries, so parts of the neighborhood sound more like work than home during the day. Three parks and no coffee shop inside the neighborhood say a lot about what it was built for, which is ordinary weekday life with a lawn nearby for a barbecue or a game of catch.